Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 139
Rushdie: Haunted By His Unholy Ghosts 139 RUSH DI E ’S SU PE R F IC I A L R E V E R SA L After nearly two years in hiding, Salman Rushdie changed his tune somewhat. Perhaps it was due to international pressure, or for reasons dictated by conscience and guilt, or maybe it was due to plain cowardice. Rushdie sanctioned a statement which said that he accepted that there was no God but Allah and that Muhammad(sa) was His last prophet. Ruth Gledhill, the Religious Affairs reporter of The Times (27 December 1990) wrote about Rushdie’s ‘disavowal of statements in his book The Satanic Verses. ’ Rushdie’s disavowal, which came after a Christmas Eve meeting with Muhammad Ali Maghoub, an Egyptian minister for religious endowments, and other senior Muslim figures, also included the following : ‘he did not agree with any statement in his novel uttered by any of the characters who insult the Islamic faith. He undertook not to publish the paperback edition of The Satanic Verses or to permit further translations during the conflict. ’ This clearly discloses evidence that there was offensive mate- rial against Islam in the novel and that he was fully aware of it. He concluded his disavowal by promising : ‘I will continue to work for a better understanding of Islam in the world, as I have always attempted in the past. ’ Rushdie wrote an article in The Times of 28 December 1990 explaining his earlier disavowal under the heading ‘Why I have embraced Islam’. Perhaps this was imposed on himself due to the fear of the ever-hanging edict of the fatwa, or it may have been true repentance. It may also have been the fact that he was disappointed with the non-action of the British Government in endorsing sanc- tions against Iran to put pressure on the latter to revoke the fatwa and he felt that there was nothing left now but to come out in the open and to try and compromise with the Muslim world himself. He started by giving feeble excuses for his un-Islamic up-bringing: ‘Although I come from a Muslim family background, I was never brought up as a believer, and was raised in an atmosphere